In the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208), Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, many major events took place. For Cao Cao, there was the joy of the great victory of the Northern Expedition to Wuhuan, the anger of killing Hua Tuo and Kong Rong, the grief of losing his chief staff officer Guo Jia and his beloved son Cao Chong, and the joy of welcoming the return of the old man's daughter Cai Wenji. However, the real big event this year has not yet been staged, and these are just the prologue.Cao Cao was fifty-four years old this year. As a military strategist and politician, he was a mature age, but at the time when life expectancy was generally low, this was also an age that could not wait for others.

After more than ten years of hard work, Tao Qian, Yuan Shu, Lu Bu, Gongsun Zan, Yuan Shao and others have called their curtains down one after another. There are fewer and fewer heavyweights who are active on the historical stage.Even so, there are heroes like Liu Biao, Sun Quan, Liu Zhang, Gongsun Du, and Liu Bei after all, and their power is growing day by day. Cao Cao is a little anxious. Sometimes things are always like this: it is easy to make mistakes when you are in a hurry, and Cao Cao is no exception.In July of this year, Cao Cao, who had finished dealing with relevant affairs in Xu County, had no time to let the horse take a long rest, so he officially launched the campaign to conquer Jingzhou south.

Before each major action, Cao Cao would hold a military meeting to conduct research and listen to opinions from all sides. At this time, there were often both agreeing and opposing opinions.But for this southern expedition to Jingzhou, the main staff around Cao Cao did not object.This may be contrary to what everyone thinks, but it is true. According to the "Three Kingdoms Xun Zhuan", before the army set off, Cao Cao asked Xun who was in charge of the daily affairs of the court (Shang Shuling) in Xu County for advice.Xun believes: "Nowadays most of the north has been pacified (Huaxia has been pacified), there must be a sense of crisis in Jingzhou (Southern soil knows that it is trapped). You can go south with great fanfare from the main road, and then from Wan County to Ye County. The trail advances in secret, in order to catch people by surprise."

Xun not only agreed to launch the Southern Expedition at this time, but also put forward specific suggestions for sending troops, and Cao Cao also accepted Xun's suggestion. This is actually the consensus of Cao Cao's staff. Some people think that Jia Xu opposed sending troops, which is actually a misunderstanding.According to the "Three Kingdoms Jia Xu Biography", Jia Xu objected to Cao Cao's march after he got Jingzhou. At that time, Cao Cao decided to go east along the Yangtze River and destroy Sun Quan in one go. This time when he went south to Jingzhou, Cao Cao finally returned in a big defeat, but the mistake happened in the second half of the journey.

If you can take Jingzhou in one fell swoop and rule across the river, you can attack Liu Zhang in Yizhou and Sun Quan in Jiangdong, you will be in a more favorable position strategically.In this way, the goal of unifying the country is just around the corner! Everyone has seen this, Cao Cao has seen it, and Cao Cao's opponents have seen it even more clearly, including not only Liu Biao, Sun Quan and Liu Bei, but also a few people who are temporarily out of the situation but can't sit back and relax at all, such as Liu Zhang, Gongsun Du, Ma Teng and others. Liu Zhang succeeded his father Liu Yan in the first year of Xingping (194), and Cao Cao's father Cao Song also died in that year.In the past 14 years, Liu Zhang, as the actual controller of Yizhou, lived a relatively peaceful life without encountering any major wars. The land of abundance, the richness of the people and the wealth of the country, sufficient soldiers and food, could have achieved a hegemony, but as Chen As Shou and Chang Ju said, Liu Zhang is "not a great man", he is not a person who can achieve great things, and many opportunities were wasted.

Liu Zhang is the fourth eldest child in his family, so he was named Ji Yu.His three elder brothers are Liu Dan, Liu Fan, and Liu Mao. In order to control Liu Yan, the imperial court kept Liu Zhang, his eldest brother and second brother as hostages in Chang'an. The reason why Liu Yan was left with Liu Mao , because Liu Mao suffers from mental illness. Liu Zhang later returned to Yizhou, and his two older brothers were killed because they were involved in the Chang'an mutiny.After Liu Yan died, Liu Zhang succeeded to the throne. Although Liu Mao was older than Liu Zhang, because he was a useless person, he usually didn't care about anything.Liu Mao's wife is surnamed Wu, and she should be a beautiful woman.When Liu Bei entered Shu, Liu Mao was already dead. The former member of the Liu family, Fa Zheng, the prefect of Shu County who had just joined Liu Bei, introduced the Wu family to Liu Bei, and became Liu Bei's Mrs. Wu. This is a later story.

When Cao Cao launched the Battle of Jingzhou, Liu Zhang judged that Liu Biao was not Cao Cao's opponent at all, so he sent his subordinate Yin Pu to pay respects (tribute to Duke Cao).There are not many records in the history books of Yin Pu, only that he is from Hanoi County. "Huayang Guozhi" says that he served as an officer similar to brigadier general (General Zhonglang) under Liu Zhang. Cao Cao should have met Yin Pu on the way to Jingzhou. He was very happy and appointed Liu Zhang as General Zhenwei in the name of Emperor Xian, and Liu Zhang's third brother Liu Mao as General Pingkou.Previously, although Liu Zhang had done a great job in his career, he only had the title of governor of Yizhou inherited from his father.

Liu Zhang was also very happy when Yin Pu went back to his command. He felt that Cao Cao thought highly of him. Now that Cao Cao had something to do, he had to express it. So he sent his subordinate Zhang Su to lead 300 old soldiers to the front line of Jingzhou with a batch of military supplies to show his respect. Support for Cao Jun. "Soldiers" are soldiers recruited from the old people. The old people mainly lived in western Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and other places from the Han to the Six Dynasties. They belonged to the Di and Qiang clan.Liu Zhang sent 300 old soldiers to Cao Cao because he used his brains. If he sent too many soldiers, Cao Cao would be suspicious: Are you here to help the scene or are you trying to take advantage of the fire?Anyway, it's just a symbolic meaning, to express one's political stance.For Cao Cao, he was also happy to accept it. At this time, there should be Huns, Wuhuan and even Xianbei in the Cao army camp. Now there are hundreds of old soldiers, more like a "United Nations army".

Cao Cao left the old soldier behind, and in order to reward Zhang Su, appointed him as the prefect of Guanghan County under the jurisdiction of Yizhou in the name of the court.This Zhang Su is the elder brother of Zhang Song who is believed to have betrayed Yizhou in the future. Liu Zhang's attitude made Cao Cao half-hearted about the western defense line, but besides Liu Zhang in the west, there was also Ma Teng who was in Guanzhong.When Cao Cao launched the Battle of Bingzhou, Ma Teng and his son Ma Chao stood by Cao Cao and made contributions. Ma Teng was worshiped as a former general and named Huaili Hou. Based in Huaili (now Xingping, Shaanxi), he became the Guanzhong The most important force along the way.

Ma Teng and his son had been stationed in Huaili for more than ten years, and their roots were very deep. Cao Cao always felt that he was not at ease. Although Ma Teng agreed, he was very hesitant.Zhang, the assistant of Sili Xiaowei Zhong Yao, was afraid that he would change his mind, and ordered the surrounding counties to stockpile food and supplies in case of accidents. At the same time, he mobilized officials with a rank of more than two thousand shi in the Guanzhong area to greet him. into the court.Ma Teng was appointed by the imperial court as the Imperial Guard Commander (Weiwei). Although he was a high-ranking official at the ministerial level, it was obviously only in name.Not only that, but he was working in Xu County, but his family members were sent to Ye County, living a life of separation between the two places.

Ma Teng and his family became hostages in Cao Cao's hands, so that Ma Chao would not be afraid of causing trouble. At that time, there were few people in the entire northern region who could pose a direct threat to Cao Cao.Of course, there is another person who is quite capable, but he is too far away, Cao Cao can ignore it for the time being, and this person is Gongsun Kang. Not long ago, Gongsun Kang Dayi killed Yuan Xi and Yuan Shang awe-inspiringly, avoiding a direct encounter with Cao Jun's swordsman. Cao Cao worshiped him as General Zuo in the name of Emperor Xian, and his status was roughly equivalent to that of Ma Teng. Hearing that the main force of Cao's army went south to Jingzhou, Gongsun Kang, who has always been very ambitious and good at grasping opportunities, felt that this seemed to be an opportunity.He convened his subordinates to discuss. Unexpectedly, Gongsun Taishou's subordinates were full of militants. Without carefully assessing their own strength, they all clamored to take the opportunity to stab Cao Cao in the back, and took Cao Cao's hometown of Ye County. Among the passionate crowd, there was only one person with a sneer on his face, showing great disdain.Gongsun Kang asked him what he thought, and the man replied: "Now there is great chaos in the country, and the country is about to collapse. General, you have 100,000 people but do nothing. How can you be a minister? Cao Gong is worried about the danger and defeat of the country. , Concerned about the suffering of the common people, led the righteous soldiers to punish the traitors for the world, made great achievements, unparalleled in the world, he did not come to ask your crime, but you want to raise your troops to the west, how about this matter, general, you can do it yourself!" The words were loud and loud, which woke everyone up.According to historical records, everyone was deeply shocked after hearing this man's words, and no one said anything for a long time. Later, Gongsun Kang said, "Sir, you are right." So he gave up the plan to attack from behind. This person is Liang Mao, whose style name is Bofang. He used to be the director (Sikong 掾) in Cao Cao's Sikong Mansion, and later served as the prefect of Taishan County as a censor. Cao Cao was transferred to Lelang County as the prefect in the previous stage.This place is on the Korean Peninsula today, and it was the actual control area of ​​Gongsun Kang at that time. Gongsun Kang detained Liang Mao and refused to let him take office, but Liang Mao was still unyielding.Cao Cao's original intention was to send Liang Mao to "mix sand" on Gongsun Kang's site, but he found that Gongsun Kang was very guarded and had no way of attacking him. Later, he found an opportunity to transfer Liang Mao back to serve as the prefect of Wei County.